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Fantasy illustration as an expression of postmodern 'primitivism' : the green man and the forest

Tolson, Emily Rosalind (2006-04)

Thesis (MA) -- University of Stellenbosch, 2006.

Thesis

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study demonstrates that Fantasy in general, and the Green Man in particular, is a
postmodern manifestation of a long tradition of modernity critique.
The first chapter focuses on outlining the history of 'primitivist' thought in the West,
while Chapter Two discusses the implications of Fantasy as postmodern 'primitivism',
with a brief discussion of examples. Chapter Three provides an in-depth look at the Green
Man as an example of Fantasy as postmodern 'primitivism'. The fmal chapter further
explores the invented tradition of the Green Man within the context of New Age
spirituality and religion.
The study aims to demonstrate that, like the Romantic counterculture that preceded it,
Fantasy is a revolt against increased secularisation, industrialisation and nihilism. The
discussion argues that in postmodernism the Wilderness (in the form of the forest) is
embraced through the iconography of the Green Man.
The Green Man is a pre-Christian symbol found carved in wood and stone, in temples and
churches and on graves throughout Europe, but his origins and original meaning are
unknown, and remain a controversial topic. The figure of the Green Man most
commonly appears in Fantasy art as a humanoid male head disgorging leaves from its
mouth; a composite of man and foliage. In contemporary Fantasy the Green Man has
come to signify what Terri Windling terms "the Mythic Forest" and " ... mythic rebirth
and regeneration ... ".
The study concludes that the prevalence and pervasiveness of Green Man and forest
imagery in Fantasy is indicative of a wider trend in modernised society - that of nostalgia
for a mythic and imagined past, and of dissatisfaction with modernity.
The discussion demonstrates that postmodern 'primitivism' continues certain
Modernist characteristics and brings them to their logical/extreme conclusion. Thus
postmodemism takes modem 'primitivism' to the extremes of escapism and
consumerism. Hence, like most counter discourses of modernity, Fantasy remains
caught in the very paradigm it sets out to critique.